Bush Raising Stakes In Iraq

President To Request $87 Billion

September 8, 2003|By Mike Allen The Washington Post

WASHINGTON — President Bush, addressing the nation Sunday night about the mounting casualties and instability in Iraq, said he will ask Congress to double the amount already being spent on the conflict and urged the United Nations to play a greater role in the rebuilding effort.

Bush said he will ask Congress for $87 billion in additional military and reconstruction spending, significantly more than the range of $50 billion to $80 billion that administration officials had previously told members they would seek. That brings to about $150 billion the amount the United States is spending on the Iraq war and its aftermath, $50 billion more than officials had estimated just a few months ago.

"Two years ago, I told the Congress and the country that the war on terror would be a lengthy war, a different kind of war, fought on many fronts in many places," Bush said in a 17-minute televised address from the Cabinet Room of the White House. "Iraq is now the central front. Enemies of freedom are making a desperate stand there -- and there they must be defeated. This will take time, and require sacrifice. Yet we will do whatever is necessary, we will spend what is necessary, to achieve this essential victory in the war on terror, to promote freedom, and to make our nation more secure."

The presidential address came as ongoing violence in Iraq is shaking public support for the occupation and for Bush. As the administration struggles to recruit more foreign troops to relieve overtaxed U.S. troops in Iraq, Bush last week reversed course and said his administration would give the United Nations control over the reconstruction in exchange for sanctioning an international military cost. Bush, in his address, blended his usual assertion of progress in Iraq with a blunt acknowledgment that the United States needs help.

"I recognize that not all of our friends agreed with our decision to enforce the Security Council resolutions and remove Saddam Hussein from power," he said. "Yet we cannot let past differences interfere with present duties. Terrorists in Iraq have attacked representatives of the civilized world, and opposing them must be the cause of the civilized world. Members of the United Nations now have an opportunity, and the responsibility, to assume a broader role in assuring that Iraq becomes a free and democratic nation."

The $87 billion request, for the fiscal year beginning next month, is larger than the $79 billion Congress approved in a similar measure for the current year after the war began in April. In addition, Bush aides said, the administration will ask other countries to contribute $30 billion to $55 billion for the reconstruction of Iraq.

The large amount of the request -- the 1991 Gulf War, by contrast, cost $80 billion, of which only $9 billion was paid by the United States -- shocked some legislators. If approved, it would increase the federal budget deficit for 2004 to $562 billion from the $475 billion the White House had projected without the war costs.

Bush's fellow Republicans control the House and Senate, and leaders of both chambers said they believe his request will pass, although some legislators said they will use hearings in coming weeks to question administration officials about exactly where the money will go, whether Bush has an exit strategy and what he plans for future years. "We'll expedite it aggressively," House Appropriations Committee Chairman Bill Young, R-Indian Rocks Beach, said. "They're running out of money."

Still, legislators and their aides were stunned that the amount was more than twice what they had expected only weeks ago and far more than the administration had suggested would ever be necessary, either before the war or during consideration of the $78.5 billion wartime bill Bush signed in April. "We'll swallow hard and fight to pass it," said a House Republican leadership aide.

White House officials had told congressional leaders just days ago that the package was likely to total $60 billion to $70 billion, in part because the administration was considering asking for the money in pieces or for shorter periods of time. Young said congressional leaders told Bush during a White House meeting last week "that we thought it would be wise to decide how much he was going to need for the long run and ask for it all at once rather than nickel and diming."

The president made no mention last night of the fiscal constraints, portraying the spending request, including $66 billion for military and intelligence operations, as crucial to national security. "This effort is essential to the stability of those nations, and therefore to our own security," he said.